The diagnostic value of diffusion-weighted imaging in differentiating benign from malignant hepatic lesions

Background Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is a novel imaging technique with growing application in onco-imaging. This modality evaluates the diffusion of water molecules in various tissues, which is restricted in hyper cellular regions such as malignant tissue. Apparent diffusion co-efficient (ADC) is a method which can quantify the degree of restriction in tissues and can have diagnostic roles in characterization of hepatic lesions. In this study, 93 patients with proven hepatic lesions were included. These patients had undergone initial evaluation via ultrasonography and dynamic CT scan, and had a definite diagnosis confirmed by biopsy. These patients underwent DW imaging and ADC values of their lesions were calculated. Patients were divided into two groups, benign and malignant groups, based on their biopsy results; and ADC values of hepatic lesions were compared in the two groups. Results The two groups were gender matched. There was a significant difference in the age distribution between the two groups. Mean ADC values for benign and malignant hepatic lesions were 1.58 ± 0.35 (10 -3 mm 2 /s) and 0.87 ± 0.16 (10 -3 mm 2 /s), respectively. There was a statistically significant differences between benign and malignant hepatic lesions ( p value < 10 -3 ). DW imaging had a sensitivity of 97.6% and specificity of 98.7% in detecting malignant hepatic lesions from benign ones ( p = 0.0001, AUC = 0.99). Conclusion DW MRI imaging can differentiate malignant and benign liver lesions with high sensitivity and specificity using ADC values generated; furthermore, each subgroup of hepatic lesions could be determined based on ADC values.